Harrison Case

Executive summary

            Harrison Company has been experiencing de creasing sales from the last three years of its operation. Therefore the conclusions that I have mad from the observations is that the company needs to make improvements in terms of how it is doing business so as to ensure that we keep pace with our major competitors like Wool-mart and Dollar. Therefore the first thing is to ensure that the goals that we are working towards are of ensuring that we are better than our major competitors in the clothing industry.

We should ensure that our business maintains the best ethics in the world of business. This will help us cope with the claims of buying our materials from unethical businesses. Perform improvements on the operations of the business this will include creating contacts that are responsible for our marketing and also ensuring that weave the perfect and well trained employees in the organization. Our employees should work targeting on meeting the organizations goals. This is because we will ensure that all the needs of our employees are meeting and that they are satisfied with their work. When we ensure staff satisfaction we will be assured of better results.

 

 

 

 

Harrison Company

Introduction

Set up some marketing strategies that will aim at improving our sales this will be the major strategies that will aim at improving the company’s sales. This will include ensuring that our products are of good quality, performing the best marketing and ensuring that the customers are convinced to try our product. We should ensure that our pricing will attract more customers from our competitors. This will be a sure way of ensuring that we see an improvement in our sales compared from the last years. Our target is to see that we have an improvement in our sales fifth year in the sales after we have applied the marketing strategies.

To ensure that the strategies work we should ensure that we interact with our customers. This will be through the giving back to the society. Since the company has been engaging in charitable things towards the society we will ensure that we continue doing so. This is to ensure that the name Harrison Company becomes reputable to the society and by doing so we will be ensuring that we have encouraged people in the society to buy our products.

The proposal of opening extra new store will be implemented. This will be a way of ensuring that we are accessible to our customers. We will also ensure that all our stores are operative and have the best employees who are interested in seeing the company grow. Therefore when we open the new retail outlets in the rural areas we will be reaching out to our customers and also ensuring that we have added on stiff competition to our rival competitors the Wool-mart.

Ethical and social responsible decisions

The company is faced with the employee ethical issues. In that it is not allowing them to join employment unions. The company has also been involved in purchasing goods from companies that are not ethically upright.

The company involves itself with charitable organizations in the society. It has been involved in giving social support to all the societies where its stores are located. One of its involvements is the support of baseball where it contributed some amount of dollars.

The company has an ethical dilemma of whether it could allow its employees to be in trade unions. This will only mean that the company has to involve itself with these trade unions. The stakeholders that are will be affected by the dilemma decision will be the employees. However the company managers are the only people who could change the decision that the company has by choosing to involve the company with the trade union. The consequences that are suffered by the employees are that they have no one to argue on their behalf in terms of their working conditions and salaries.

Therefore to deal with the issue of the employees union as the president I will ensure that there is a proper working communication channel in the company. This is the channel through which the employees will get a chance to air their grievances. To ensure that my plan is ethical and that in doing so am improving the society I will ensure that I answer to all the employee’s grievances making sure that they are rewarded fairly and that their working conditions are good.   This will be a good way to motivate my employees. By so doing I will ensure that there is great satisfaction from the work that the employees are doing. This will be a good strategy of ensuring that the employees are productive at work and they will only aim at ensuring that the company has great returns so that they can be greatly rewarded.

Analyzing and synthesizing

Marketing

Our marketing strategy is based on ensuring that there are great improvements in our sales for the next five years. We have a sales forecast that the company sales revenue is supposed to rise in the next five years

To ensure that there is an improvement in the sales revenues (Kahn, 2011).  We will ensure that the four Ps of marketing are successfully applied. We should first deal with what we are marketing. In this case the products that we are selling to our customers are the main things that we have to first deal with. We will ensure that we provide products that are of high quality. This is to ensure that our products beat our rival’s competitor products in the market and that they fetch the best reputation from the customers. Good that are perceived to be of good quality market themselves and the customers give great preference to them.

Our pricing will be in search a way that everyone is in a position to afford the products. Therefore the pricing will be a good way of fetching a wide customer bases this because when there is something for everyone then the market will serve a wide range of customers. Therefore this will be a good way of improving the sales of the company since everyone will have something to buy.

By building extra new stalls and ensuring effective operation of the existing stalls we will ensure that one will be able to access our products. This will be because of our strategic positioning. It will be a better way of ensuring that we are accessible. Therefore the distribution pattern of our place of operation this will be a better way of ensuring that we market our products all over the country. The distribution of the store is a better way of encouraging accessibility to the products that are produced at Harrison Company.

We will use promotional devices such as exhibitions, this is the platform will help the company marketers to teach the consumer of the products they are offering for sale. This will be a way of convincing the consumers about the products and also encouraging them to buy the products. There will be also the use of quantity discounts on sale this will encourage the consumers to buy the products in large quantities so that they can enjoy the discounts. There will be also the use of discounts in pricing this will be a way of attracting more customers from our competitors.

Finance

There has been a decrease in the revenues from the third year to the present year. This has been brought about by the increase in the operating expenses. In the second year there was an increase of operating expenses from $7.659 to $8.132 million this was as a result of the increase in the salaries that did not lead to increase in the sales. This was because the employees were not productive and most of them had little knowledge about how to do the business. This was the reason why the previous president increased the annual salaries from $150000 to $200000. Because he thought that an increase of the employees will improve the sales which were not the case since he did not put the right considerations of efficiency on his recruitment.

By calculating the liquidity ratio of the company which shows how liquid the assets of the company are. This will be a good way of measuring the ability that Harrison Company has to meet its short term obligations.

Liquidity ratio=current assets /current liabilities

When using the information of the last year this will give us

=28819000/12450000

=2:1

Therefore the company is in a position to meet the obligations of the supplier since it has a higher liquid ratio. In making the five years forecasts there will be the forecasting of improved liquidity this will ensure that the obligations of our debtors are meet. Therefore they will be greatly satisfied hence ensuring that they are not delaying our supply.

To forecast on the sales that we will make in the next five years we will use the rate of stock turnover ratio (Leach, 2010). This will enable us discover the number of times the stock is sold and thus replaced with new stock. Therefore the company will know of its capability to sell and make sales thus coming up with good conclusive forecast for the operations of the next five years.

Inventory turnover=cost of goods sold/average stock

=38453000/7694000

=4 times

Therefore using the last years data the turnover rate is high thus the company should focus on forecasting in reducing the number of stock turnover times this is to ensure that the stick is either sold at 1 or 2 times of turn over’s this will mean that there are high sales compared to the previous year’s which was sold at a higher number of times. Therefore the company should focus in reducing the number for turnovers on stock to ensure that there is quick sale which in turn means that there are high sales as a result of the faster sale of the available stock.

The company should also use the profitability ratios to measure its ability to generate revenue from its sales (Leach, 2010). This will help the company compare its operation with its competitors. They will thus through the profitability ratios be able to forecast on their areas of improvement to help the company realize higher returns of sales. This will be the only way through which the company will be able to outdo its competitors. This is because when the company records higher sales than its competitors it is an indication that there are more customers visiting their stores more than their main competitors the wool-mart and the dollar.

Therefore it is through the calculation of the financial ratios that the company will be able to know of its current state and thus as the new president I will be able to access on the improvements that are needed in the company to ensure that the company is outdoing its competitors. On making of the forecast the ratios will help me make real forecasts that will help improve on the companies operation. Therefore to be able to make real forecasts there will be the need of scrutinizing the financial statement to access the position of the company and its strengths and weaknesses.

Logistics and operation

The supply chain in Harrison’s company starts from the suppliers distributing the required materials for the production (Ranchhod, 2004). In this case there is denial of payment by the company. For the supplier to improve the company has to improve on its payment to the suppliers. This will motivate them to improve and deliver on time the required materials in all Harrison’s company.

The company should improve on the inventory that is in their distribution centers. This is to ensure that there is available for the customers to have a wide range of products to choose from (Solomon, 2003).  Therefore ensuring that their stores are always stocked to attract customers this is because many people are attracted by places where there is variety to choose from.

There should be improved transportation to the stores from the points of distribution. This will ensure that there is frequent distribution to the stores. Through this the company will be assured that its stores are well stocked to serve the customer. There will also be the avoidance of inconveniences such as delays that will cause the failed operation in the stores. Transport will also be a sure way of ensuring that there is smooth running of the stores. This is because the smooth running of the stores will be assured by the proper distribution of the require materials or products.

Therefore the right decision to be applied in the stores is the expansion strategy and the holding strategy (Solomon, 2003).Through holding strategy we will ensure that there is improvement in the stores that we already have. This will be aimed at ensuring that our customers in the old stores are fully satisfied thus ensuring that we maintain them in the stores. The expansion strategy will consider the areas that are highly populated. Through this we will ensure that we fetch a wide base customer so that we can improve on our sales. These two strategies will be aimed at ensuring that our stores are well distributed and they are working towards the improvement of the sales so that we can meet our fifth year target.

In terms of our operating expenses we should ensure that we reduce on the expenses. This is because this is cutting down on our on our profits. We will ensure that we employ people who are relevant to the company and who will be working towards the achievement of the company’s goals. We will ensure that there are no dormant workers in the company. By doing we will reduce the expenses of salaries in our company.

The forecasts that there will be used to illustrate the number of hours that each worker needs to work. This will be aimed at ensuring that each and every worker is active in his work. There should be the avoidance of the part time work this is to reduce the amount of salaries paid. The number of hours worked should be distributed to the full time workers so as to avoid part time jobs that are costing the company more. Therefore the available 2000 work hours should be distributed among the available employees so as we can avoid using the part time employees and reduced on our expenses.

Identifying industry and global trends

There those factors that are external and affecting the operation of the business. As the new manager I should ensure that I deal with search factors as our competitors the wool-mart and dollars. This is because they are the determiners of our sales revenues at the end of the day. Therefore in our forecasting we should consider the factors to factor in our business to ensure that we are better than our customers in terms of customer satisfaction and quality products. This will be one way that we will use to outdo our competitors in the industry. Ensuring that our products have a good reputation from the customers thus they will fetch high market share for our products.

Economic conditions such as inflation should be considered in our forecast. Will the existence of inflation in the market affect our sales and if so how do we do to our product prices to ensure that they are still attractive to the customers and that through the sale we are accruing revenues. Therefore there will be a time of economic forecasters who will be in charge of advising on what to do to deal with the constraints that are experienced in the company.

On our store distribution we should consider the demographic factor. Availability of population in the location of operation means that there is a ready market for the products that are produced or being sold (Solomon, 2003). Therefore as the new manager I will ensure that the new stores that have been proposed to be opened will be on the areas that are highly populated. This is because in these areas there is the availability of a market for the products that we are selling. Therefore I will consider the improvement of the stores in high populated areas and also the closure of stores that are in the lowly populated areas.

Therefore it is worth watching on the population distribution. This is because the population means that there is availability of a ready market for our products and since we are looking for a market of the products that we are producing it will be worth ensuring that we put population to consideration on making our new location for the stores. This will be a sure way of ensuring that we are having a ready market for the products in the new stalls.

Leadership and group dynamics

We will apply leadership styles that will be full of democracy. This is to ensure that there is contribution on the management of the business from all departments in the organization (Paley, 2005). This will be ensured through the use of effective communication everyone will be given a chance to contribute his views on how the business ought to be run. We will ensure that we give our employees the freedom to motivate and make improvements in their work. This will be a good way of seeing a growth in the company since when there is growth in the company’s employees work this will be implicated in their good work in the company. Thus the employment of leadership styles that are not very restrictive to the employees will be a better way of ensuring that we meet our five years forecast on sales.

We will group our employees according to their capabilities in work that is based on what they can do best. This grouping of employees will be a sure way of ensuring that there is growth in the employees that will be as a result of the grouping that will ensure that every worker has time to make growth in his specific area of operation. To ensure that there is effective working of the groups we will ensure that we listen to everyone’s grievances and solve them thus ensuring that there is cooperation between the workers in their work towards archiving the goals of Harrison Company.

Implication of integrated business process

As the new manager of Harrison Company I will employ a defensive strategy in the business. This is because the company has been experiencing rising expenses that do not tally with the revenues. Therefore I will try and adopt those strategies that will aim at reducing the expenses and improving on the sales revenues.

This will involve the use of good marketing strategies that aim at improving the sales of the company. There will also the assurance that the employees in the firm are relevant and active working towards the achievement of the goals of the company.

In conclusion the only good way to meet the forecasts of the Harrison company is by ensuring that there is smooth running of the business internally this will mostly involve the employees. There is the use of good marketing strategies that will aim at improving the company externally.

References

Kahn, K. B. (2011). Product planning essentials. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe.

Leach, R. (2010). Ratios made simple: A beginner’s guide to the key financial ratios. Petersfield, Hampshire: Harriman House.

Paley, N. (2005). The manager’s guide to competitive marketing strategies. London: Thorogood.

Ranchhod, Ashok. (2004). Marketing Strategies. Pearson Education UK.

Solomon, M. R. (2003). Conquering consumerspace: Marketing strategies for a branded world. New York: AMACOM.